Paris, Part Un

 Fri/Sat 

The trip started off with a bang. Alas, not like the celebratory bang of fireworks, but rather the “oh, sh*t” bang you hear when you rear-end someone with your car. Valerie and I were scheduled to take an 10:30 PM overnight flight to Paris; however shortly after noon I received an email saying my special meal order had been cancelled due to a change in itinerary, then a second email with a $20 coupon towards a meal on a flight to make up for the inconvenience. Huh. A little while later I received an email and a text saying that our flight had been cancelled due to mechanical problems with the aircraft. Oh, boy. This was trouble. We were due to start our tour in the next day, and so we had to make it onto a flight to Paris today! 

Not a good sign

Further, Valerie is an anxious traveler and the part which she finds most unpleasant is the actual travel to the destination. She’s not worried about the plane crashing or anything like that – she just despises the grind of getting from Point A to Point B. So, when we were handed news of a critical screw-up in the travel of a trip which would take her further from home than she’d been in a decade, I knew that things were heading in a bad direction. 

The tour operator had booked our flights so I called them immediately to see what could be done about rebooking. Mind you, we were talking about booking a flight to Europe to depart within the next six hours, so we're talking really last minute. At first our flight cancellation wasn’t even showing in their system (it did show up in the United app, otherwise I might have thought I was imagining things), but eventually, after consultation on their end with a supervisor, they were able to see it. The agent said they’d escalate it to “operations” and would get back to me ASAP with options. 

Ninety minutes passed with no response. In the interim, Valerie had been doing an online chat with a United agent, who offered no help other than letting us know that the earlier United flight to Paris – United’s only other remaining flight to Paris that day - was full. United wasn't being very helpful at all.

We called the tour company again. This time I had Valerie do it – in crisis situations she can project a hysteria-on-the-verge-of-meltdown vibe which is very effective in getting people to help her out of fear/pity. Again, the travel agent promised to help, and this time we stayed on the line while they worked the problem. They proposed one itinerary – flight to Zurich, a four hour layover, then on to Paris, which we accepted - but for some reason the airline rejected it. Then they proposed a 5:15 PM departure, but by this point it was too late for us to make it to the airport for that flight. It’s hard to describe how freaked out we were getting at this point. Would we make it to our long-anticipated Paris trip at all? Would we miss the first day or more? Would we have to reschedule for a different week? Could we do so even if we wanted to? 

We kept holding on the line. Finally, they came up with a 6:20 PM Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt with a four hour layover, then a connection to Paris. That one worked, but in terms of timing, as soon as we hung up the phone we had to quickly throw the rest of our stuff into our suitcases and head to the airport. Needless to say, the rarely-crowded Dulles access road was clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic due to construction, giving us an opportunity to sweat just a little more. Once finally at the ticket counter at Dulles, we were told our reservations were showing on the computer but hadn’t been properly ticketed, so we had to call the travel agent hotline, and then we were turned away at security and had to go back to the counter one more time because they hadn’t included our TSA Pre-check on the boarding passes. But we made it onto the flight! 

Please excuse a little airplane geek-out digression: I was five years old when Boeing introduced the 747. Weekly Reader, the news magazine for new readers, covered the introduction of the new jumbo jet and to this day I recall being fascinated by the article (though I imagine the coverage was not particularly in-depth). I think I can trace my career choice to that article, but here it was fifty-seven years later, and I still had never flown on a 747! The U.S. carriers have largely phased them out and so I was resigned to never flying one, but our flight to Frankfurt was … a 747-8, the last, biggest, finest variant! Not only that, we had splurged for this trip and so we had seats upstairs in Business Class. Upstairs! Let me say that it was about as lovely as air travel can be. Fine wines, white tablecloths, flight attendants who address you by name (actually, when we boarded a woman nicely switched seats with me so I could sit next to Valerie, and until I pointed the switch out to the flight attendant she kept addressing me as Professor Dortmeister and attempting to speak to me in German). 

The mighty 747

On the eight hour flight to Europe you get, even with the fold-flat bed and a belly full of wine and Benadryl, maybe four hours of fair-to-middling quality sleep. We stumbled off the plane in a daze and made our way past the wurst and pretzel kiosks (apparently Germans live up to their food stereotypes) to the Business Class lounge to while away a four hour layover fortifying ourselves with free snacks and, in Valerie’s case, striking up conversations with every damn person who made the mistake of sitting down at a table adjacent to ours.  

Finally on the airplane! Look at that legroom.

In-flight dining

Finally, it was time to board our short hop to Paris. Except it wasn’t. More mechanical issues required a change of aircraft, and we wound up being delayed another two hours. During this period our guide, who was supposed to meet us at the airport, texted me to say it was getting too late and she couldn’t hang around the airport any longer – we were on our own getting from Charles de Gaulle to the hotel.  

When our brief flight to Paris (in theory also business class, but business class on the A321 offered exactly the same seats as economy; they just left the middle seats empty to give you more room) landed, we easily caught a cab to the hotel. I should mention that the pilot of the Frankfurt to Paris flight was a hipster-looking guy with a big beard and a man bun – something you’d never see on a U.S. carrier. We thought our travel nightmare was finally over, but – I am not making this up – just as we were approaching the hotel a freak hailstorm hit Paris. We wound up hunkering down in the taxi in front of the hotel for about ten minutes because neither we nor the driver wanted to get out of the car and get pelted with large hailstones. Finally, the hail started to change back to rain and we grabbed our bags and made a dash for the hotel entrance, getting soaked in the process. 

Hailstorm!

Check-in went smoothly, but when we got to our room Valerie, who by this time was giving a really bravura performance of pretending to be hysterical-on-the-verge-of-meltdown, found it unacceptable (the bed wasn't king-sized! the room was in a noisy spot! there wasn't sufficient clothing storage!) and so we returned to the front desk, where through sobs she asked to switch to a different room. Unfortunately, the hotel was fully booked (the staff was very nice and promised to switch us the following day) and so we trudged back up to our deemed-unacceptable room, dried off a little, then sprinted down to the orientation session as if we were trying to beat throw to home plate, sliding into our seats about ten minutes after the presentation had started. 

Dinner with the group at a restaurant near the hotel was a blur. I had cod which came with a heavy cream sauce (“with a heavy cream sauce” seems to be the default preparation here). Valerie had beef (she didn’t like because it was too peppery). I left dinner early to head back to the hotel because I was crashing. We went to be early, with hopes of feeling better the next day. 

Sun 

After a good night’s sleep we were indeed feeling a little better. The breakfast buffet at the hotel was typical for European tourist class hotels: a small hot buffet, breads, cereals, yogurts, some fruit, and the strange (to me) selection of cold cuts and cheeses. Alas, no decaf coffee (c’mon Paris, Portugal’s got you beat on this one!). I must say, European hotel breakfast buffets beat their American counterparts hands-down, even without a waffle maker.

To its credit, the hotel followed up to see if we wanted to switch rooms, but we had by then spoken with other group members and discovered that the other rooms had their share of quirks as well and so we decided to stick with the devil we knew rather than switching rooms.

On Saturday we had briefly met our tour leader Odile, the woman who had bailed on us at the airport. Today we met our guide, Agathe, who started our day started with a lecture about the early history of Paris from pre-Roman times until the beginning of the Renaissance. Agathe is a knowledgeable guide and an entertaining presenter. After the talk we got on the tour bus and spent the rest of the morning on a driving tour of the city. The swaying of the slowly moving bus was quite sleep-inducing, particularly to those of us who were still jet-lagged. I drifted off a few times; Valerie slept quite a bit too. 

Lunch was at a creperie across from the Pompideau Center (an art museum which is currently largely closed for renovation). I ordered the only thing which I could eat (that is, the only item with no ham, and no mixed meat and cheese), the Norwegian salmon crepe, which was quite good. Valerie wasn’t as happy with her chicken crepe, which she said was dry. 

First of many busking accordionists sighted on a bridge over the Seine

After lunch we walked to the Ile de la Cite, the oldest part of the city, where we visited St. Chappelle, built in the 13th century to house some holy relics, including the supposed crown of thorns and a supposed fragment of the cross. Agathe rolled her eyes a little at the idea of the authenticity of these relics, but medieval King Louis IX believed in them enough to spend half the kingdom’s budget this phenomenal chapel featuring over 1,000 stained glass panels. The space was intended to feel like heaven on earth. The stained glass windows depict biblical scenes, and it was interesting to me to see how much of it was devoted to the Old Testament. Apparently, back in that era they still read the Hebrew Bible in in Aramaic as well as in Latin, and there was more emphasis on the Old Testament than there is today. Yes, Moses is depicted as a swarthy fellow with horns, and there are hints in the imagery of supersecessionism (a.k.a. replacement theology, the idea that Christianity is the new and improved replacement for Judaism), but hey, at least the Jews get some mention! Truly a lovely place to visit. 

St. Chappelle

Checking out the stained glass at St. Chappelle

St. Chappelle - exterior detail of demons

St. Chappelle: A swarthy, horned Moses receives the commandments from G-d,
who is pictured as looking more like that other fella.

A curious fountain outside the Pompideau Center

Rather than ride the group tour bus back to the hotel, I chose to walk back through the Marais district – about 2.2 km. By coincidence, the Marais, where we're staying, is the historic Jewish Quarter. Today it’s a lively shopping district which retains a few hints of its Jewishness (a bagel store and several delis among them!). I strolled, watched some street musicians, window-shopped, and just immersed myself in present-day Paris a little bit – maybe my favorite part of the day. 

Street musicians in the Marais

The night's dinner wasn’t included in the trip, so after a quick nap Valerie and I scrounged dinner from a local supermarket. Alas, they were sold out of baguettes (it was almost closing time), so rather than a romantic French picnic of bread, cheese, and wine, I bought some pre-fab dal (Indian lentil curry) and some packaged crepes which served as a stand-in for naan bread, which I augmented with leftover mixed nuts from the previous day’s flight. Not a bad dinner, and a nice break from big restaurant meals. Valerie ate a well-balanced meal of chocolate mousse and a piece of a hazelnut chocolate bar for dinner. Then we hung out in our room and went to be early. 

Mon 

Let me digress from the travelogue for a moment to write about our group. This is our first trip with Road Scholar, company focused on tours for the retiree set. They used to be called “Elder Hostel,” but these days no one wants to be considered “Elder”, and they no longer focus on hostel stays, so the company rather sensibly changed its name.  Still, they remain focused on tours which focus on experience and learning rather than luxury. We had heard many good reports of Road Scholar trips, and I think part of Valerie's disappointment with our room was that she had gotten into her mind that Road Scholar offered a higher level of luxury than it actually does.

Our tour is “Paris at a Slower Pace”, which is tailored for those who don’t want or can’t handle too high a level of activity. Personally, I think it should be called “Paris at a Snail’s Pace” cuz, y’know, France? Snails? Several in our group used canes or trekking poles, and one woman couldn't walk far without a wheelchair. This was indeed going to be a snail's pace group, which worked for Valerie's mobility limitations as well. I should note that Agathe was incredibly patient and always took the group's limitations into account. Pretty impressive from a woman who I'd guess was in her late thirties. Certainly I wouldn't have been that patient with a bunch of geezers when I was her age.

Our group

Valerie and I were among the youngsters of our group – out of 24 participants, I’d say that fifteen have personal memories of the time when Napoleon became emperor of France. Just kidding! As one of the younger and more physically able members of the group, I definitely felt it was a trade-off. It was nice to not have to worry about logistics like transportation or of getting reservations to get into crowded places like the Louvre, but being babysat through day after day of activities with little free time isn’t quite my bag. I like time to just walk around a city and I enjoy the challenge of finding my way around. But I will say that the guiding was a definite plus. Agathe was incredibly knowledgeable, her presentations were fun and engaging, and kept us on pace. Odile, our tour leader, was great too, though she was a little more of a bulldog about it. 

Interestingly, the 24 members of our group included 19 women and five men (I’m assuming no one identified as anything other than those two genders). The five men were all part of couples, which left fourteen women traveling solo (or together), and they were a group of spunky old gals. There were no unaccompanied men in the group, which didn’t completely surprise me, because when I went by myself on a Backroads bike trip to the Netherlands a couple of years ago I discovered that a guy traveling solo on one of these trips is something of a unicorn (that trip, too was chock full of spunky old gals). I don’t have an explanation for this phenomenon – do guys not do group tours? Do they not like to travel? Do they all die young? Anyway, add in the two female trip leaders and it was a really female group. The five guys killed a lot of time waiting for the 21 women whenever the group took bathroom breaks.  

Our day started with a lecture picking up where the previous day’s had left off, taking us from the Renaissance (which arrived late to France because the country was preoccupied with the 100 Years War) up to the revolution. Then we headed out for a walking tour (we actually did some walking – though at a slower pace) through the Latin Quarter, which got that name because it’s the original academic center of Paris (that’s where the Sorbonne is located), and traditionally, Latin was the lingua franca of scholarship. The Latin Quarter is one of the oldest parts of the city, being one of the first places the city expanded when it outgrew its original Roman-era location on the Ile de la Cite island in the Seine. We saw medieval buildings (mostly refaced in the 19th century to look more modern), the university, and the Pantheon, which honors and is the resting place for France’s greatest citizens.  

Alas, one of the ways Road Scholar keeps their prices down seems to be by skimping on meals. It’s not that the meals are bad, it’s just that they’re lackluster and we aren’t given a lot of choices – certainly not the quality of cuisine you’d expect in one of the world’s great food cities. Lunch was a chicken thigh and leg white rice slapped onto a plate. Those of us who asked for a vegetarian option got an unadorned Beyond Burger-ish veggie patty slapped onto a plate with white rice. Not an elegant presentation. As always, beer or wine was included (but coffee was not!). Dessert was the stand-out part of the otherwise cafeteria-ish meal - excellent chocolate mousse! 

After lunch Valerie visited the apparently famous Shakespeare and Company bookstore while I crossed back over onto the Ile de la Cite and visited the newly reopened (after having been damaged in a 2019 fire) Notre Dame cathedral, which is pretty darn impressive. We lucked out – the line was short and the cathedral was only mildly crowded. 

Notre Dame

At Notre Dame I discovered that there is something known as a “Jesse Window”, a stained glass window depicting a lineage of Jesus stretching back to King David and beyond to David’s father Jesse. This is of a piece with the supersessionism concept I mentioned earlier – the Christian idea that Christians had replaced Jews as the covenant people and that Christianity is the new vibrant religion which arose from the dried-out cicada shell of Judaism. The New Testament book of Hebrews is explicit about this idea, saying, “In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” Pope Pius XII reiterated this “vanish away” concept pretty strongly in an encyclical in 1943 – pretty cringy timing, coming as it did in the midst of the Holocaust. Anyway, inventing (or documenting, if you prefer) a lineage of Jesus tracing back to King David via the “tree of Jesse”, as the gospels do, makes a point that Jesus has taken over the family religion business and that it’s Under New Management! 

Subtext notwithstanding, it was cool to stumble upon the cathedral’s Jesse Window. The genealogy reads from bottom to top, but surprisingly Jesse isn’t the bald, bearded guy at the bottom left; rather, he is the guy dozing off at the bottom middle (apparently, Jesse is usually depicted asleep!). Notre Dame also has a David chapel, but alas, no Teddy or Valerie chapels. St. Chappelle apparently has a Jesse window as well, but at the time I was there I hadn't known to look for it.

Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

Artsy votive shot

Tree of Jesse

Jesse window

Jesus and some kayakers

We finished our afternoon with a boat tour on the Seine, from which we were see many of the exact same sights we had passed on the first day on our bus tour, except this time we were seeing them by water! Parisians are apparently very fond of their river - heck, the whole city defines itself around “Left Bank” vs. “Right Bank” - but as something of an urban river aficionado I found the Seine to be a pretty uninspiring river. It is narrow, with high, walled off banks. To me it feels more like a canal than a river.  And I didn’t see any small boats – kayaks, canoes, crew shells, etc. Still, I’m always happy to be out on the water and the boat dock was right near the base of the Eiffel Tower. We didn’t go up in the tower, but we did get an up-close view and some good pictures. 

We're on a boat

At the Eiffel Tower

Dinner was once again at a restaurant near our hotel. The restaurant had an enclosed patio area (think of the little outdoor enclosed spaces which sprang up during COVID). Our group took over this whole area. The weather was been a little nippy, with highs around 60 and lows in the 40’s, and sitting on an unheated semi-enclosed porch (there were heaters but for whatever reason the staff refused to turn them on) was a rather chilly experience. All of us ate dinner with our coats on, though by the end of the meal 26 people’s worth of body heat did warm the place up a little. 

Our dinner choice was between salmon and eggplant with quinoa and feta cheese. Valerie hates salmon and is never really fully happy with vegetarian dishes, so she wasn’t pleased with the choices but gamely choked down some of the eggplant (hold the feta cheese and the mustard sauce, s’il vous plait). For my part, both entrée choices sounded really good, but since I had just had salmon on the plane I went with the eggplant dish, which I found to be quite tasty. I loved that French mustard sauce almost as much as Valerie hated it! Dessert was some nice cheesecake. On the walk back to the hotel Valerie and I stopped in at the supermarket to look for decaf tea. We wound up in a brief conversation with a young Lebanese woman who spoke perfect American English, and a couple of Brits – we all joked about finding the English-speaking community of the Marais gathered in the tea aisle. When we got back to our room we got the front desk to send up another blanket for the bed. As I mentioned, our visit coincided with a little bit of a late springtime cold snap, but the week leading up to our arrival had been quite warm and as a result the hotel had switched off the heating system for the season, leaving the place rooms with no heat when the weather turned colder. Our room, with windows on two sides and an exterior-facing door, got pretty cold at night and we slept much better once we had the extra layer of covers. They also finally sent up an engineer to fix our slow-running bathroom sink. Another aside – we found the hotel’s maid service strangely unpredictable. The day after they delivered the extra duvet, it was gone again, replaced by a twin-sized one. The weather was starting to get a little warmer, so we used the twin turned sideways rather than go through the effort of getting a replacement. It was also fun every day to see what combination of towels they had given us or omitted.